


Remembering

by orphan_account



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (TV 1989)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self-Harm, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21789529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Beetlejuice can't find Lydia. He doesn't know where she is or where she could be, but he's determined to find her. He knows his Lyds, she wouldn't just disappear like this, she wouldn't...
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Remembering

**Author's Note:**

> Warning that this is gonna be a little emo because it's inspired by the song Remembering Sunday by All Time Low because the little emo in me rears its ugly head all the time, and who am I to say no.
> 
> It's more of something stupid than anything else but works are meant to be shared so why not right.

He was alone.   
Utterly alone.

Blue eyes with dark black circles surrounding them met the ceiling as Beetlejuice woke up, alone. Yet, he knows for a fact that he didn’t go to bed alone last night. His best friend and lover, Lydia Deetz, had been curled up in his arms and dozing peacefully when he had fallen asleep. He was used to Lydia leaving before the night was up, she wasn’t living alone and had people that would notice if she didn’t make it home by morning.  
But this was different. Lydia would always wake him up before leaving to announce her departure to him. She knew that he didn’t like waking up alone. It wasn’t like his Lydia to leave him alone like this. It even felt that the air was different, that something heavy was weighing the room down. 

Beetlejuice sat up with a grunt, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and planting them firmly on the floor. He looked around the room with bleary eyes and a scowl. There weren’t even any signs that Lydia had been in the room last night. Lydia had made herself very comfortable in Beetlejuice’s home in the Netherworld, and would often leave a few things here and there. Hair ties or pins, maybe a pair of earrings or a necklace, things she could always get back easily. The dresser showed no signs of her having been there at all. She had taken everything she normally left. The spot on his dresser that was always left empty for Lydia to set her belongings was just that. Empty. 

He got up and went over to the mirror hanging on the wall, the one window he had into the living world. It gave a clear view of Lydia’s bedroom in her family home. The room was spotless there too, giving no indications of her interference. This made Beetlejuice’s face twist into a deeper scowl, something he never would have thought possible. He could see her alarm clock and it was early. It was too early for her to have gotten up already. 

“Maybe she did end up staying the night,” Beetlejuice hopes. “She might just be in the other room.” It’s a long shot, but it would explain the spotless bedroom. Beetlejuice exits his bedroom to confront his neighbors. He knows that if she was still around, they would’ve seen her. 

Jacques LaLean and Ginger were the renters to Beetlejuice, and only to himself did he call them friends. He could never tell them that, no. He had a reputation to uphold after all. Right now though, reputation be damned. The skeleton took one look at the ghost, who was standing in the doorway with his hands shoved in the pockets of his striped suit, and knew that something was up. Beetlejuice never looked this gloomy first thing in the morning. In fact, Beetlejuice was not one to ever be this depressed looking. His raven-haired companion has been known to get melancholic at times. But Beetlejuice avoided sadness like the plague, masking it with any other emotion he could. It didn’t take long for Ginger to catch on to the ghost’s depressed mood too. 

“Good morning, Bee-atle-juice,” Jacques calls out, keeping the concern carefully hidden from his voice. Beetlejuice grunts back in response. 

“Either of ya seen Lyds this morning?” Beetlejuice asks. He was in no mood for pleasantries.

“No, she left last night,” Ginger remarks. “She said that you fell asleep and she had to get home and didn’ want to wake you. I thought that was weird, she always makes sure to say goodbye ta you.”

Jacques pipes in at that. “Oui, mademoiselle Lydia ‘as been acting very unusual lately.” None of the residents of the house could deny that one. Lydia had seemed distant and distracted ever since her first semester at college had ended and she was home for the month. Beetlejuice didn’t know what had been bothering her, he had tried to get her to open up about it many times since her return, but to no avail. 

“She ain’t in her room,” Beetlejuice says. He was masking his worry thinly. 

“Maybe she just had an early morning,” Ginger offers with a smile. “Why don’t you join us for some morning TV, take your mind off everything. I’m sure Lydia’s fine.” Beetlejuice sulked over to a chair and sunk down into it without a word. It was clear that he wasn’t satisfied with that. 

Two days later and Lydia had not returned to either the Netherworld or to her room in the living world. Beetlejuice was driving himself half-mad staring at the mirror in his room, waiting for his dark-haired beauty to come back. The only person that has entered the room has been Delia Deetz, Lydia’s neurotic step-mother. The redheaded woman simply walked into the room and grabbed a dress from Lydia’s closet and left. Beetlejuice didn’t like Delia to begin with, and he certainly didn’t like her going through Lydia’s stuff like that. It shouldn’t be Delia that is walking into that room without a care in the world.   
At this point, Beetlejuice was beginning to feel like he had done something wrong that led Lydia to leave him like this. He hated that, feeling guilty. It wasn’t natural to him, but that’s all he could feel as he waited for Lydia to walk back into his life. He was a man torn from his wits. He jumped up every time the door to his house opened, waiting to hear that sweet voice that he loved so much. Anytime he thought he saw something in Lydia’s room, he felt that his heart was going to jump out of his chest. Deep down, he knew that Lydia wasn’t going to walk into either her room or his house.   
Something had happened to Lydia, that Beetlejuice knew for certain. He had to figure out what. He was going to go insane waiting for the explanation to find him. 

New Yuck city was a place that Beetlejuice and Lydia had visited often. Causing mischief and inconveniences to any and all residents that would cross their paths. Unfortunately, the pranks the two pulled ended in Beetlejuice being banned from many establishments. That wasn’t going to stop him from trying to find his best friend though. 

“Hey, you seen this girl?” Beetlejuice stops a ghost on the street that looks to have been in a nasty car crash from the glass protruding from their face and torso. He holds out a picture of Lydia. The glass riddled ghost looks at the picture.

“No, I haven’t, but she’s a cutie,” the ghost says with a laugh.   
Beetlejuice snatches the photo back quickly. “She’s mine, bub, so back off.” The ghost looks over Beetlejuice, who was more disheveled than ever.

“I guess we know what’s wrong with her then,” the ghost mumbles, hurrying away from Beetlejuice before the poltergeist could take his anger out on the poor passerby. Beetlejuice scowled and said some curses under his breath, continuing down the street, stopping everyone and asking if they’ve seen Lydia. He also began plastering some posters on walls and windows and street posts. There was still no sign of Lydia. At least, no new signs.

A small, but glitzy, restaurant still held the mark of his and Lydia’s visit. He wouldn’t have known if it was still there if he didn’t enter the establishment, but there on the table in the private room was the scratched in initials of Lydia Deetz and Beetlejuice. That and the whole room was still decorated in black and white stripes and calypso music was blaring, something Beetlejuice had done for no reason other than he wanted to make Lydia laugh.

It was both the first date the two had ever shared and a present for Lydia’s eighteenth birthday. Beetlejuice had wanted to do something special for her, and the restaurant was one of the few places that hadn’t banned him yet. Lydia had shown up in a black velvet dress that ended just above her knees and wore the spider brooch he had gifted her years and years ago. She looked like a vision, and Beetlejuice couldn’t understand why she ever chose to be with him. The whole night he felt like he was freezing up, but he was making her laugh and they were both having fun. Her laughter when he turned the room upside down and changed all the decor was intoxicating. Beetlejuice remembers deciding then and there that he would do anything to keep her happy and laughing.   
With a new set determination, Beetlejuice left the restaurant and continued his hunt for Lydia. 

He checked the less savory places they visited, and still found no leads to where Lydia could be. He checked Lydia’s favorite places, and still, there was nothing. He returned back to his home and once again saw no sign of her. Returning to his bedroom, he checked the mirror again and, to no surprise, found nobody in Lydia’s room. 

In a fit of anger, Beetlejuice shoved the junk that resides on the top of his dresser to the floor, screaming profanities as he did. He toppled the dresser next, sending it flying across the room. 

“The fuck did I do, Lyds? Huh? Why’d you take off like that?” He screamed to the mirror, knowing that no answer would come. “I know that I’m not the best person! I know that I fuck up, but shit. You left me, no fucking word as to why.” He collapsed on the bed, burying his head in his hands. He felt so much rage and guilt and, dammit he felt depressed. He had lost his best friend and he had no idea why. 

“Beetlejuice?” A woman’s voice called out to him, causing him to whip his head so fast that, should he have been alive, it would have hurt. Once again, his hope was met with heartbreak. 

Barbara Maitland, Lydia’s adoptive mother in all ways except legally, stood in front of the mirror in Lydia’s room. “The fuck do you want, Babs?” Beetlejuice grumbled.

“I heard your shouting from the hallway,” she begins to explain. She has a pitying look on her face that causes Beetlejuice to straighten his jacket, and reduce any other signs of distress. There was no way that he was going to let Barbara of all people see him in the state he was in currently. “Are you doing okay?” Barbara asked, quietly. Neither of the Maitlands liked Beetlejuice, but they knew that he made Lydia happy and tolerated him on that alone. Barbara, however, was a woman that didn’t want to see others suffer if she could help it. 

Beetlejuice snorts. “Yea, Babs, I’m great.” 

“You’re not doing well with Lydia being gone I take it,” she sighs. Beetlejuice stops and stares at her. “Seems Babs knows something that I don’t,” Beetlejuice thinks to himself.

“What do you mean gone?”

An afterlife of civil servitude wasn’t something that Beetlejuice would’ve wished on his worst enemy. Never would he have ever thought that Lydia Deetz, his Babes, his whole world, would end up with the fate he desperately did everything he could to get out of. He didn’t want to believe it, he couldn’t believe it, even with the note that Barbara had shown him which was now held tight in his hand.   
Despite Miss Argentina’s arguing that Beetlejuice couldn’t enter the office spaces without an appointment with his caseworker, and Juno certainly didn’t want to see him right now. With a snap, a plate of metal was bolted over her mouth as Beetlejuice pushed into the room. The room was hazy and dark, with papers strewn everywhere. Rows of desks lined the room, some occupied by skeletons or ghosts that coloring hinted at their death. And there, there in the back of the room, hunched over at a desk was a dark-haired girl who looked paler than death itself. 

“Lydia,” Beetlejuice whispered, relief filling his body. She was here, she was safe, he found her. “Lydia Deetz!” He yelled, running up to her as her head whipped up to find who had shouted her name. She recognized the voice instantly and was terrified to see him. Terrified and happy. So damn happy. She raised one hand and waved lamely at him, her smile betraying her emotions. 

Beetlejuice wrapped her in a strong hug and rough kiss the second he reached her. Her hands instantly found themselves tangled in his tousled blond hair as she was kissed with the passion she knew only Beetlejuice could ever give her. And he kissed her like she was the only thing keeping him alive. The ecstasy of finding Lydia and seeing her was enough for Beetlejuice to momentarily forget his anger. 

He pulled away and held her face in his hands, admiring those gorgeous brown eyes that make him melt so easily. Lydia was always pale but he couldn’t get over how pale she was now. But she was here at least and he could get her out of whatever job they decided to stick her with. First though, first he had to know…

“Why, Lyds? Why’d ya do it? After everything I told ya about this place, everything you’ve seen. Why?” Beetlejuice asked, his voice taking on sincerity and tenderness that was strictly reserved for Lydia. Lydia was always the only one that could get him to drop his act. 

Her gaze shifted to her lap, and she moved her hands to rest on Beetlejuice’s shoulders. Her face was filled with shame. Of course, she knew that she would end up exactly where she was now. Beetlejuice spoke with hatred of his time working as Juno’s assistant. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Juno, he simply hated being forced into servitude the way he was. Lydia knew what was going to be waiting for her on the other side, and as she was dying it almost made her want to fight to stay alive. “I failed my classes this semester. They were going to suspend me and I just,” Lydia shakes her head in shame. “What was the point, right? I couldn’t even pass an introductory photography course. Everyone always told me how amazing I was and, I guess it was all a lie. But nothing here is a lie, I knew that I could at least have something set for me here and I wouldn’t have to worry. About anything really.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“You would’ve stopped me.” 

Beetlejuice could feel anger rising higher. “Damn right I would’ve stopped you!” He yells. The way Lydia recoils from his anger makes him stop. “You deserve a better afterlife than this, Babes. Hell, you deserve this whole world to be bowing down to you.”

“No, I don’t,” Lydia insists. “Not after what I did.”

“Babes, that doesn’t change what a wonderful person you are. You’re the best out of everyone I know. You’re better than all of ‘em put together.”

Lydia laughs and tucks her head closer to her chest, never having been raised to accept compliments well. “How’d you find me anyhow?”

“Barbara gave me your note. I knew exactly where ya’d be.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to be upset.” 

“I’m just glad I have ya back. I can get ya out of this bullshit job too. Then, you and me, Babes, we’re gonna take over the whole Netherworld.” Lydia smiles. 

“Beej, I deserve what I got. I should stay here and serve my sentence,” she explains.

“We’ll find ya something else if you’re that set on ‘serving time.’ I’m not gonna let you sit and rot here in this office.” Lydia knows Beetlejuice well enough to know that she won’t be winning this argument. And Beetlejuice knows Lydia well enough to know that she wouldn’t walk away from this job unless she found a way that still met the guidelines of fulfilling the price of her death.   
The couple knew that this was as close to their happily ever after as they would ever be able to get.


End file.
